 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was held in Senegal's capital Dakar on November 29th and 30th. The meeting was attended by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and leaders from across the African continent. The conference was held in an interesting time as trade between China and the continent has increased substantially. In 2019, direct trade itself amounted to around 200 billion US dollars. A lot of the discussion has been on increasing the extent of cooperation and extending it to new fields. What were the major results of the conference? Mikhail Ayuzog, a researcher with the Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research and a member of the Secretary of Fire Africanism today, who was at the conference, answers these questions. I think it's important to start off with understanding that the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation has been in existence now for 21 years, relatively short when we consider the kind of longer historical institutions like the African Union or the United Nations. But what this Forum for Cooperation means is that different African states are trying to build a kind of collective agenda for Africa's development in relation to China and in relation to different cooperation, partnerships, and exchanges. In the last 20 years or 21 years now, what we've seen is we've had a lot of important advancements, not without different challenges because this is an experimentation, this is relatively new, but Chinese infrastructure investments have totaled over 110 billion in the last 20 years. And this has also boosted different industries in Africa. So we've seen over 16,000 kilometers of railroads and roads, at least 20 ports being built by Chinese companies through different financing agreements. Over 80 power stations have been built and Africa's trade volume with China is now around, I think as of 2019, at 106 billion whilst the US has significantly dropped. I think in 2019, it would have been around 30 or so billion. So Africa now stands with China as they kind of forerunner in terms of their economic and slowly, I think, more of their political relationships. And so every three or so years, we have seen these meetings for the forum where we have a conference and this is usually or would have been a whole taking place last year in Senegal Dakar hosted by the Senegalese government. But due to COVID-19 and the various restrictions, it had to be moved to this year, and usually would have been a heads of state meeting, we would have seen different African heads of states, well as President Xi Jinping and high level Chinese diplomats being at the event of person, but they again, due to security and safety reasons, decided to have a ministerial meeting or a ministerial conference. So we had different foreign ministries being represented and Foreign Minister Wang Yi was one of them who represented China and was present physically here. But in the opening ceremony, we did have the opening ceremony coached by President Xi Jinping and President Makisal of Senegal. And I think an important aspect that kind of speaks to, you know, good gesture or good gesture and good faith was that other African heads of state were allowed to have the platform and to speak on the platform online, of course. And so President Xi, of course, South Africa spoke from online as well as the presidents of Egypt and Comoros. So they were online whilst many of us were sitting with the with the representatives of the foreign delegations in a conference hall in Senegal Dakar. A couple of things about actually how things went and what was achieved was, you know, they signed a really important, it's called the 2030 vision, which sets out not only the kind of key thematic areas of deepening cooperation, which the theme of the ministerial meeting was deepening cooperation, but it also set out, you know, the importance, of course, of solidarity around the COVID-19. It looked at different security issues. It looked at and raised the issue of climate cooperation. It was a big emphasis on technology and, you know, digitization and different forms of capacity building. And if I can go through in Xi Jinping's opening speech, he set out very clearly what the kind of nine main action areas were for the kind of exchange we're hoping to have in the next three years in this 2035 vision. And I mean, critics have said that the package given by China was not necessarily as high as in 2018 because in 2018 it was a 60 billion in financing was pledged and this currently still being dispersed. And in total, I think the main dispersal looked like around 40 billion, but if you calculate the different sections that were covered, it actually could actually amount to almost the same. It's just been given less specificity in this initial proposal and it's probably only, you know, a few weeks time will understand really the depth of the financing. But what I think is important and is a failure of a lot of Western journalists and analysts and experts is this focus on purely on financing and not really thinking about the comprehensive approach that was being proposed. And just to mention, I said these nine areas of action, they were poverty reduction and agricultural development. They were trade promotion, where they're going to try to have what they call green lanes for African agricultural exports. And very interestingly, they're proposing that in three years time that by 2024, China's hoping to have at least 300 billion in imports from Africa, which it currently stands at 100 billion. So that's quite a leap within the next three years. So that was probably one of the more interesting proposals. But otherwise, they mentioned, you know, they want to initiate and support 10 connectivity projects, which, you know, would be increasing the kind of digital infrastructure in Africa. They looked at 10 industrialization, it was kind of like a 10, 10, 10 project way within agriculture, they want to have 10 projects, they want to build 10 schools. They're hoping to have at least 10 industrialization and employment promotion projects. And there was also a good amount of emphasis on capacity building and trying to develop deeper cultural and people to people exchange. There was also interestingly a question of peace and security because China, it does have a security presence on the continent in terms of the collaborations in the Horn of Africa around the piracy issues, and it has for the last few years. But it seems like Africa is calling for more support in various UN and peacekeeping missions, which would of course, inflame some issues, existing issues of the kind of new Cold War that the US is trying to dominate the African continent with its foreign military presence. But that's just some of the areas that were raised. And of course, the big headliner in terms of one of the outcomes was that China has pledged to donate and produce in total 1 billion vaccines for Africans and 600 million of those will be donations, whilst 400 million will be bought, but will be produced with an emphasis on being produced in Africa. So that was one of the big, I think, headliners that also got the Europeans and Westerners concerned about what China's future role will be on the continent. The conference took place even as the United States has been portraying China as a country Africa needs to be careful of. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was in the continent recently, and even before a number of US statements have focused on containing China. How successful has this campaign by the US been? How do African countries see these attempts by the US? Michaela talks about these issues. I mean, of course, it's not coincidental that Anthony Blinken took a trip to Africa and visited, I think, three, four African countries ending his trip in Senegal. It's no coincidence that he did so. I think it was 19th of November and the conference began on the 29th. The China Africa Conference began on the 29th. And in, I think, one of his most reported interviews, one of his main things he said is that our Africa policy is not about China. This is kind of the thing that he's been pushing, which, again, interestingly, if your policy or your approach to Africa isn't about China, why do you need to talk about it so much? But it's very clear that that's not the case because he arrives 10 days before the China Africa Forum of cooperation is supposed to have its conference. And if we look historically in recent years at the US's presence on the continent, the US government's new Africa strategy, which was released in 2019, basically characterizes the situation in competitive terms. One of the lines that I have here in my notes is, it basically says, great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa. They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States. So this is like in their Africa strategy, their focus point is on this kind of financial competition. So Lincoln's saying that their policy in Africa is not related to China is a lie. And the documentation, the historical policies prove that. And then two, it hasn't been a successful campaign in all honesty, because for a number of reasons, I mean, one is that they clearly don't have necessarily we are taking Africa for what Africa is. But two is that the way in which they tend to speak the rhetoric is often very patronizing and a lot of African leaders feel that it carries a historical weight of the kind of white supremacist colonial project that patronizes to African leaders and patronizes that they don't know how to make good choices about their own countries and about their own destinies, which if you contrast to China is totally different because even the themes that were coming out and the kind of even if you want to call it rhetoric that was coming out still has a level and a degree of sincerity that is absent in US diplomatic speeches and conversations and policies, which for China it's about the common future, a shared destiny advancing together. And even if we look at the numbers in terms of the priority that China has made with diplomatic visits, I think since between 2009 and 2018, Chinese diplomatic visits between China and Africa were like 222 trips. And of those 82 were top diplomats like he and others visiting. And Wang Yi, I think he's visited the continent, the foreign minister Wang Yi, he's visited the continent. I think it's at least three times. This was his third visit this year. And he actually just got to Ethiopia and visited them, I think it had an important show of solidarity when they're having a very difficult situation there. And coming from the African side, at the last point maybe I'd raise is that in the speech of Aisata Telsal, who is the foreign minister of Senegal, I was surprised and intrigued by the fact that she raised in many ways how China has been leading the kind of international multilateralist wave or shift and allowing African countries and developing countries to take the stage and to be more equal partners in terms of global governance and international relations and politics. So that was definitely an interesting point. But what I will say as an overall challenge that I think was very noticeable in the conference as well as in the documentation that came out of the conference is a little bit of an absence of Africa. It felt like the agency and the protagonist wasn't there from African leaders. There wasn't a sense of originality and creativity. Most of the documents do read like they are Chinese written documents, documents coming straight from the Chinese government. And I think that's fine that there's an important contribution coming from China but there wasn't a sense of discussion and co-creation of not only the declarations, not only the agreements and the China Africa vision of 2035. But there was still a lack of Africa coming to the table because whilst China was emphasizing that they would send 10,000 I think it's high level African professionals will go to China to receive certain education and things like that. We didn't see Africans saying well why don't we get Chinese people to come to our schools. We have great intellectual traditions, rigorous intellectual traditions where we could be offering even on a soft power basis maybe we can't offer China the same level of financing and you know economic investments. But a sense of creativity around well we as Africans have, we have history, we have knowledge, we have our own technical skills. Why don't we make an agreement to have you know at least 10,000 Chinese students come to different African universities on scholarships that might even be paid by China but nonetheless show this sense of exchange. And in there was a business conference that was happening parallel to the Foucaque conference which was called the 7th conference on Chinese and African entrepreneurs. And even there it was very clear that this is still the Foucaque project is still within the hands of the elite of Africa who aren't interested in giving space to the working people of Africa because we have one of the youngest populations or youngest continents with the youngest populations with averaging ages around you know 24-25 and in the business conference we didn't see a sense of acknowledging how do we bring young people into the entrepreneurial space even on a kind of liberal rhetorical basis. And if you looked in the room and even in the Chinese diplomatic course staff they have a lot younger people, a lot younger people. We were still seeing you know in the Congolese delegation we're all over you know 50 years old. I mean maybe some more a few younger but we're not seeing a reflection of the reality on the ground which is that young people are the majority but giving them space to develop in partnership with China is totally absent. So if I can just end as a last sentiment what I really liked in President Xi Jinping's speech was he quoted Senegal's first president Leopold Sengor when you know a few decades ago he basically said let us answer present at the rebirth of the world. So let us answer present like we are here at the rebirth of the world. And that kind of offering from Xi Jinping you know drawing on Sengor, Leopold Sengor I thought was an important call to action, protagonism and agency on the sides of all of the people involved and from the side of the Africans and our African leaders specifically it doesn't necessarily feel like they are present and are trying to advance at the highest level possible a development agenda that China could positively collaborate with us. So I think a lack of presence is one of the challenges that we as African people are going to have to deal with and we know that that only cannot come from China but has to come from us within our different nations and within our different struggles for advancement and total liberation.